In response to this insightful editorial, we wish to provide commentary that seeks to highlight recent successes and illuminate the often unspoken hurdles at the intersections of culture, politics, and taboo. We focus on sexual transmission and draw examples from Lebanon, where the pursuit of data in quality and quantity is teaching us lessons about the way forward and where we are experiencing...

Obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are increasing worldwide and may compromise female sexual function. We hypothesize that among GDM patients in the third trimester of pregnancy, those with excess body fat would have worse female sexual function scores than normal weight women. Our aim was to assess the sexual function of overweight compared to normal weight women with GDM. This wa...

As psychiatrists, we seek to understand and foster mental health in relation to many aspects of life, including intimate life and the deeply personal domain of sexuality. In this special issue of Academic Psychiatry, we take a careful look at psychiatry’s role in teaching medical students, psychiatric residents, and colleague physicians about human sexuality and the sexual concerns that arise i...

Young people’s sexual health is a major concern worldwide and in Australia. The sexual behaviour of young people has changed over the past 50 years – with a trend towards first sex at an earlier age, and high rates of unprotected sexual intercourse among young women and men. While an AIDS/HIV epidemic seems to have been prevented successfully in Australia, infection rates for sexually transmiss...